Daily Archives: June 23, 2017

The Impact of the AHCA on Veterans: State-by-State Breakdown – Center For American Progress

Posted: June 23, 2017 at 6:05 am

Anew analysisby the Center for American Progress finds that 441,300 veterans would lose Medicaid coverage by 2026 under the plan of President Donald Trump and House Republicans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Senate proposal, crafted behind closed doors, contains even larger Medicaid cuts in the long term than the House plancuts that would ultimately result in more veterans losing Medicaid coverage. Moreover, like the House bill, the Senate plan allows states to make changes to essential health benefits, which would reduce current protections for veterans with pre-existing conditionsincluding service-connected disabilities such as spinal cord injuries, amputations, and post-traumatic stress disorderand lead to steep increases in medical costs, harming American veterans and their families.

Contrary to common misperceptions, the majority of the nations 20 million veterans do not get their health care coverage from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs but instead depend on other types of insurance. This includes Medicaid, which currently covers nearly 1.8 million American veterans.

The cuts not only break President Trumps pledge to support veterans, they also disproportionately harm voters in the areas that most strongly supported him. New CAP analysis reveals that in the counties Trump won in the 2016 presidential election, 10 percent of adults are veterans45 percent more than the share who are veterans in counties Trump lost.

The table below shows a state-by-state breakdown of the estimated number of veterans who would lose Medicaid coverage by 2026 under the cuts proposed in House Republicans American Health Care Act (AHCA). (see Methodology)

Authors calculations of state-level estimates of Medicaid coverage loss among veterans are based on estimates from a May 2017 CAP column by Emily Gee regarding overall state-level health insurance losses under the AHCA. We used state-level data on veterans Medicaid enrollment in 2015 from the American Community Survey (ACS) 2015 1-year estimates, accessed through the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, and projected what veterans Medicaid enrollment would be in 2026 under the ACA by assuming that the number of veterans enrolled in Medicaid will change at the same rate as the Department of Veterans Affairs forecast of the total number of veterans in each state. We then assumed that the share of veterans losing Medicaid coverage under the AHCA by 2026 will be the same as the share of all adultswhich, for the purposes of Medicaid, includes individuals aged 19 and olderlosing coverage by 2026. To compute the reduction in Medicaid coverage among adults in 2026, we first scaled up states 2015 adult Medicaid enrollment from ACS 2015 1-year estimates according to total projected Medicaid enrollment among adults in 2026 given in the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Offices (CBO) March 2016 budget projections, which the CBO used in its score of the AHCA. We used estimated state-level coverage losses among all adults aged 19 and older from the Gee column to compute the percentage by which Medicaid coverage will decline by 2026. Finally, we applied these percentage coverage losses to our state-level projection of 2026 Medicaid enrollment among veterans.

Note that this analysis assumes that the share of veterans enrolled in Medicaid in each state remains constant over time, which produces a conservative estimate for two reasons. First, rates of disability for veterans have increased since 2001, and second, the CBO projects that if the ACA is not repealed, additional states will expand Medicaid, extending Medicaid coverage to an additional 5 million people, some of whom would likely be veterans.

The analysis of Trump counties where Trump won the vote combines demographic and income data from the 2015ACS 5-year estimateswith 2016 voting data from theAtlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, which tracks election outcomes in all counties except those in Alaska and a handful of other counties around the country.

Rachel West is an associate director for the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress. Katherine Gallagher Robbins is the director of family policy for the Poverty to Prosperity Program. Rejane Frederick is an associate director for the Poverty to Prosperity Program.

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Triangle power bills could go up $20 a month if Duke Energy Progress rate requests are approved – News & Observer

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Coverage Losses Under the Senate Health Care Bill Could Result in 18100 to 27700 Additional Deaths in 2026 – Center For American Progress

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One Republican member of Congress, defending the GOP health care planthe American Health Care Act (AHCA)suggested that concerns that the loss of health care coverage leads to death are overblown. However, the scientific literature on the effects of insurance coverage on mortality shows that the coverage losses from the AHCA would result in tens of thousands of deaths.

The secret Senate bill was finally released today, and it is broadly similar to what passed in the House: It ends Medicaid expansion and makes further deep cuts to the program; eliminates the individual mandate; and reduces funding that helps low-income Americans afford health coverage. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has not yet released its score of the Senate bill, although it is expected to do so early next week.

The CBO, however, has released a score of the Houses version of the AHCA, which is largely similar to the Senate bill. The score projected that, by 2026, 23 million more Americans would be uninsured under the House bill compared to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Using estimates of mortality rates from Massachusetts experience with health reform, we estimate the number of additional deaths resulting from coverage losses from the Senate bill under three scenarios: one scenario in which coverage losses from the Senate bill are the same as under the House version, and two scenarios in which those coverage losses are modestly reduced by changes from the House bill.

Allocating these coverage losses among the states, this analysis also presents estimates of additional deaths by state.

A significant body of research has demonstrated the health benefits associated with health insurance expansion, including reducing the rate of death among the population. One study found that state Medicaid expansions that preceded the ACA were associated with a significant reduction in mortality. A recent analysis of these pre-ACA Medicaid expansions demonstrated a 6 percent decline in all-cause mortality due to Medicaid expansion. Another analysis showed that following implementation of the ACAs provision that allows young adults to remain on a parents health insurance until age 26, mortality rates decreased among Americans ages 19 to 25. In particular, mortality caused by diseases amenable to health care dropped among young adults, while trauma-related mortality did not. And a study of patients with cancer between the ages of 20 to 40 found a statistically significant association between insurance coverage and reduced mortality from any cause.

The result most relevant to the ACA and its repeal comes from a study examining the effects of the Massachusetts health care reform on all-cause mortality and on mortality due to causes amenable to health care. The study found that expanding insurance coverage was associated with a 2.9 percent decrease in all-cause mortality and a 4.5 percent reduction in deaths from causes amenable to health care. Because Massachusettss reform was used as the model for the ACA and included a coverage mandate, Medicaid expansion, and private insurance expansion through the individual market, the data is more representative of the effects of ACA insurance gains than studies looking solely at Medicaid expansion or narrow demographic groups. Furthermore, observers have noted that the studys quasi-experimental study design is of high quality and the next best thing to a randomized control study.

Other parts of the scientific literature have shown how having health insurance, unsurprisingly, results in better health. A recent study of three years of ACA data demonstrated that uninsured people who gained coverage through the ACA experienced a 23 percent increase in self-reported excellent health. One analysis found that the ACA coverage expansion was associated with reductions in self-reported fair or poor health and days with activity limitations due to ill health. Another analysis showed that ACA insurance gains were associated with an increased share of respondents reporting excellent health. And a recent study of ACA-facilitated Medicaid expansions found that they modestly improved self-reported health.

Other insurance expansions produced similar results. Massachusetts insurance expansion was associated with improvements in self-reported general, physical, and mental health. Data from the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment showed that expanding Medicaid was associated with improved self-reported physical and mental health and reduced depression.

Insurance coverage also improves childrens health and access to care. Research shows that when parents have insurance coverage, their children are more likely to be covered, maintain stable coverage, and receive needed care. According to the Institute of Medicines systematic review, insured children are more likely to gain access to well-child care and immunizations, appropriate care for asthma, and basic dental services, as well as have fewer avoidable hospitalizations, improved asthma outcomes, and fewer missed days of school.

Taken as a whole, the research strongly suggests that health coverage has a significant positive effect on health. However, a few studies have found more limited health impacts of insurance expansion. While the Oregon study found improvements in self-reported health, it did not detect clinical improvements other than depression reduction. Another study showed no changes in self-reported health resulting from the ACA, although a subgroup analysis did show improved self-assessed health among older nonelderly adults, especially in expansion states. And an early observational study of the ACAs Medicaid expansion comparing low-income adults in expansion and nonexpansion states found no differences in self-reported health between the groups.

There may be several reasons for these outlier results. The studies in question looked at time frames too short or sample sizes too small to capture more significant health impacts. In addition, insurance is a necessary but not sufficient factor to receive quality health care. Receiving high-quality health care requires access to providers, institutions, and services; access to consistent primary care and referral services; choice of providers and institutions; and the delivery of high-quality services. It also requires that insurance policies cover basic and vital services.

Drawing on the Massachusetts experience, we estimate that there would be one excess death for every 830 people who lose coverage as a result of the AHCA. The CBO projections of coverage reductions under the House version of the AHCA would equate to 217,000 additional deaths over the next decade, including 27,700 additional deaths in 2026. (see Table 1) To put this in perspective, that is approximately the number of people in the United States who died from opioid overdoses in 2014 and about twice the number of deaths by homicide that same year.

We also estimate the additional deaths in 2026 resulting from coverage losses from the Senate bill under three scenarios: one assuming coverage losses equivalent to the House bill and two scenarios that show modest reductions in coverage losses. If the Senate bill results in coverage losses of 19 million that would result in 22,900 additional deaths in 2026. If the Senate bill results in coverage losses of 15 million that would result in 18,100 additional deaths in 2026.

In addition, drawing on the Center for American Progress estimate of state-level coverage reductions in 2026 under the House version of the AHCA, we estimate additional deaths by state in 2026 as a result of coverage losses from the Senate bill under the three scenarios. Under the scenario assuming coverage losses of 23 million, annual additional deaths would range from 36 in North Dakota to 3,111 in California in 2026. Under the scenario assuming coverage losses of 19 million, annual additional deaths in 2026 would range from 30 in North Dakota to 2,570 in California. Finally, under the scenario assuming coverage losses of 15 million, annual additional deaths in 2026 would range from 24 in North Dakota to 2,029 in California.

Given the overwhelming weight of evidence, there should be no debate: Health care coverage has an impact on whether Americans live or die. Our data estimates show that under any of the scenarios we analyzed, a significant number of American lives are at stake in this debate. Legislators considering whether to support this bill should keep in mind and soberly consider the catastrophic effect the AHCA would have on so many Americans and their families.

We calculated national excess deaths per year by dividing the estimated coverage losses by the estimated numbers needed to treat (NNT) to prevent one death, based on analyses of the Massachusetts health care reform. Treatment in this instance refers to the number of individuals who would need to receive insurance coverage in order to prevent one extra death. The Massachusetts study found that there was one fewer death for every 830 people who gained coverage; that NNT was consistent with a 30 percent relative reduction in individual-level mortality for persons gaining insurance.

We estimate that there would be one excess death for every 830 people who lose insurance coverage, which assumes that the Massachusetts result would be symmetric for health insurance gains and losses. Of note, our approach is similar to that taken by the White House Council of Economic Advisers to calculate the mortality reductions from the ACA.

Our estimate of the national number of excess deaths each year under the AHCA is then equal to the CBO-projected coverage reduction under the House bill divided by 830. We calculated state level estimates by applying the same methodology to state-level health insurance losses from the Center for American Progress state-level analysis, which combines data from the CBO, the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the American Community Survey to calculate anticipated insurance losses by coverage type.

We also included estimates of the number of excess deaths in 2026 if national coverage losses under the Senate bill were 15 million or 19 million that year. For our state-level estimates, we assume that each states coverage reductions and excess deaths are 65 percent and 83 percent of our estimates of the effects under the House-passed bill, respectively.

Recent debate sheds light on different approaches to estimate the mortality impacts of insurance loss. Bearing this debate in mind, we designed our approach using the most accurate, rigorous studies. We base our calculations on estimates of AHCA-related coverage losses from the CBO and the Center for American Progress, and on Benjamin D. Sommers, Sharon K. Long, and Katherine Baickers 2014 quasi-experimental study of the effects of Massachusetts Health Care Reform on mortality. We chose this study due to its sample size and power, and because Massachusetts health reform, which expanded both private and public coverage, was used as the model for the ACA.

One limitation of our analysis is that the same NNT was applied to all states, although the estimate was derived from the Massachusetts health care reform. There are demographic and health care infrastructure differences between Massachusetts and other states. The Massachusetts population has a higher per capita physician rate, lower baseline mortality rate, higher income and baseline insurance coverage rates, fewer racial and ethnic minorities, and more women, compared to national averages. Some of these factors suggest that Massachusetts may have a higher NNT than other states, meaning that our estimate of the number of excess deaths under the AHCA would be too low, while other factors suggest the state may have a lower NNT.

In addition, the NNT was calculated from mortality decreases associated with insurance expansion. There is uncertainty as to whether withdrawing insurance will cause the equal and opposite effect of providing insurance. Lastly, our estimates capture only the impact of increased uninsurance under the AHCA and do not take in to account possible mortality effects among people who would remain insured but lose certain benefits or encounter worse access to care due to the bill.

We calculated a 95 percent confidence interval around our estimates of excess mortality. The confidence interval contains the range of reasonable values that include our estimate of excess mortality, with 95 percent confidence. Within this range the best estimate for the actual number of excess deaths is the point estimate. The point estimate is the mean and represents our best prediction for annual excess mortality rates, given the current evidence and available data. For instance, in the year 2026 and assuming 23 million more people are uninsured, we estimate that 27,711 excess deaths will occur, and we are 95 percent confident that the true number of annual excess deaths will be between 9,583 and 46,000.

Ann Crawford-Roberts is a medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a graduate of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Nichole Roxas is a medical student at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and a graduate of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Ichiro Kawachi is a professor of social epidemiology and the chair of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Sam Berger is the senior policy adviser at the Center for American Progress. Emily Gee is the health economist for the Health Policy team at the Center.

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What’s Love Got to Do with Transhumanism? – First Things

Posted: at 6:04 am

Nothing you can make that can't be made. No one you can save that can't be saved. Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time. It's easy. All you need is love.

The Beatles

Transhumanism is all the rage among the nouveau riche of Silicon Valley, who are investing hundreds of millions of dollars into research they expect will launch The Singularity. What is that, you ask? The Singularity is an anticipated pointas important to transhumanists as the Rapture is to Evangelical Christiansat which the cascade of scientific advances will become unstoppable, allowing transhumanists to recreate themselves as post-humans.

The transhumanist quest has two primary goals: radical life extensionwhich we will not discuss hereand the exponential increase of human intelligence (perhaps because it would better enable them to achieve the first goal). Transhumanists are obsessed with increasing cognitive functioning. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla Inc., has started a company dedicated to developing neural technologies to cure disease and increase human intelligence by way of a direct cortical interfaceessentially a layer of artificial intelligence inside the brain. The company is also reported to be exploring cosmetic brain surgeries to make us smarter.

Musk is not alone in putting his money where his futuristic dreams are. Last year, the New Scientist reported:

The company,Kernel, was launched earlier this year by entrepreneur Bryan Johnson. He says he has spent many years wondering how best to contribute to humanity. I arrived at intelligence. I think its the most precious and powerful resource in existence, says Johnson.

Johnsons belief exemplifies why I find transhumanismessentially neo-eugenicsboth morally deficient and philosophically sterile. Theres nothing wrong with intelligence, of course. It is one of the attributes that make humans exceptional. Indeed, our speciess extraordinary intelligence enabled us to leave the caves.

But intelligence is hardly the most precious and powerful resource in existencenot even close. That place of honor belongs to love. And I find it striking how rarely transhumanists speak about love or how to enhance our capacity to express itexcept, perhaps, in the most carnal sense.

Many animals love, of course. Some birds mate for life. A mare will mourn the death of her foal. A mother bear will kill without hesitation if she thinks her cub is endangered. A dog may sacrifice his own life to save his master. But only humans have the inherent capacity to giveand apprehendLove with a capital L.

Perhaps transhumanists have little interest in the human capacity to love because its full expression transcends carbon molecules and the firing of neurons. It is no coincidence that a deeply faithful theist gave us perhaps the most profound description of loves boundless scope:

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.Love never fails.

The purer the love, the less the regard for self. And lack of self-regard conflicts with materialistic transhumanism, which is steeped in solipsism and hyper-individuality.

Heres the tragically ironic thing: The people among us who are most innately capable of loveat least, in the full sense described by St. Paulare those with Down syndrome. Every person I have ever met with that genetic condition is better than I am because of his or her greater capacity to love.

But they are not intelligent, at least not in the particular ways that transhumanists value. And sad to say, we are in the midst of a pogrom to wipe these beautiful and gentle people off the face of the earth. Denmark has the stated goal of becoming Down syndrome free. Ninety percent of fetuses diagnosed with Down in the U.S. are aborted, while Iceland brags that its abortionists dispense with 100 percent of diagnosed fetuses. France recently prevented Down syndrome associations from running TV advertisements about the joys of parenting Down children, because they could make those who aborted their Down babies feel guilty. These awful statistics indict us for lack of love.

Besides, love is not a quantifiable quality, as many consider intelligence to be. There is no quick fix for the love-challenged. Our hearts cannot be enhanced through brain implants or other futuristic tinkering. On the contrary, learning how to love usually requires being loved. It expands through unquantifiable human connections. Transhumanism, on the other hand, is all about effortless improvements. Its adherents seek to become extraordinarylonger life, smarter brains, superhuman capacitieswithout having to really work at it.

Heres the bottom line: No matter how much we strive to engineer ourselves into post-humanity, no matter the fortunes invested by transhumanist venture capitalists in increasing our intelligence, exponentially expanding our capacity to love is the only way we will ever truly enhance the human species.

Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institutes Center on Human Exceptionalism. His most recent book isCulture of Death: The Age of Do Harm Medicine.

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Mailbag: The limits of ethical egoism – Albany Democrat Herald

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Richard Hirschi's June 14 letter quoted Ayn Rand as if her words were holy writ. Rand disciples should see on Google "Problems with Ayn Rand's philosophy." They'll find several logical fallacies in her position of ethical egoism.

Also, they should consider the current occupant of the White House, a perfect example of egoism run amok. Everything is about him, either for him or against him. He is centered on praise and attention at all times. These are also the characteristics of spoiled kids. Everything is about what they want, and what they hate. If they don't grow up and accept society's norms, they'll be Mr. Trump or Ayn Rand (who was a lot like Trump in her private life).

We who have grown up are not thieves, as Rand claimed, nor are we collectivists, as Hirschi wrote. We own property, stock, businesses, etc. We just want to avoid what happened to Kansas under Gov. Brownback. The state cut taxes for the rich and businesses, forcing steep cuts in funding for public schools, highways, and other needed services (check it online). It didn't improve the economy as promised. It just left the state broke, with a lousy credit rating.

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Against Nihilism – MTV.com

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He is the loudest rallying cry in the world that its time for us to do better and get to work

The 2016 election was a slow-motion nightmare, the kind that gives you sleep paralysis, like you're awake and have to scream to survive but your mouth is stitched shut as the vague outlines of men set your house on fire. It was a year of destruction. All those nice little lies it's so easy to tell ourselves about politics, about how politeness is a virtue and facts beat muscle, were incinerated.

It's a nightmare that's hard to wake up from, so total was its trauma and ability to crush resolve. This is partially because President Trump refuses to shut up about his win, a win he never planned for. It's also because the actions of his White House are so utterly corrupt and incompetent and depraved that they don't even feel real.

Navigating our political landscape feels like we went for a walk in the woods and fell down a hole and landed in an America where the sun is going out. It is so surreal that it's tempting to regard it as fantasy, as something that has to end fantastically, something that can be undone with a magical reset button that sends Donald Trump back to a version of 2014 in which Bill O'Reilly voluntarily retires from Fox News and hands Trump his show and we can go back to our normal lives oh god, for a road back home to our normal lives.

I was on the road for most of 2016 covering the election, and only now is any perspective arising. When I attended the fringe right-wing Constitution Party's convention in Utah, I got the feeling that the Christian conservative community I knew growing up was dying, which was advantageous to progressives. What I understated then was that these kinds of conservatives, governed by rules and traditions and "the old way is the best way," were being replaced by a more nihilist strain, a type of conservative who is not hopeful or politically engaged and wants to demolish government as we know it for entertainment, for spectacle. It's a movement whose motto is "fuck everything, who cares."

When I first started taking Trump seriously as a contender for the White House, I wrote about his birth via conservative talk radio by Michael Savage and Alex Jones, and Rush Limbaugh before them. These performers used the language of politics, the idea of politics, for entertainment. Rush Limbaugh was a comedian who needed to keep his listeners amused so they'd stick around after the commercial breaks. He didn't care about truth, because truth is dull and has the odor of schoolwork.

Then Limbaugh got too popular. People who weren't comedians took his talking points and used them to sculpt new characters, with more conviction. It was a racket and it made a lot of people rich, but it also created voters who didn't engage with their fluff entertainment critically and came to believe its stories through overexposure. It created voters who were used to having their prejudice and moral laziness validated and encouraged. It made it easy for Donald Trump, who founded his career on rackets, to mobilize these voters who had been poisoned for decades. Much easier than it would have been for the melting wax statues who made up the rest of the Republican Party to do so.

Trumps barreling plea to chaos gave me cause to worry at the 2016 conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia. I fully expected riots, because Trump was soaking Republican anger in ethanol and so many Democrats were distraught about the primary defeat of Bernie Sanders. But no riots came. There was conservative vitriol and liberal despair, but I mostly saw an ocean of people from all walks of life who were unmoved by and unhappy with their party's candidate for president.

The week before the election, I drove cross-country with my brother to ask every single regular person we could find about the election, and how they felt about the country. What we found was not an uprising of white working-class malcontents who were foaming at the mouth for white nationalism, but a resounding and thorough sigh of "this sucks." There was no evidence whatsoever that Trump was actually popular. His ascendance was mostly a matter of mobilizing regular Republicans while Democrats were divided over their anointed wonky centrist.

In the months since that drive into purgatory, we've seen how Trump governs: like somebody who has no idea how government works and only cares about being the most famous guy on the news. And he's exactly as smart as a YouTube fast-food reviewer hopped up on trucker speed (if YouTube fast-food reviewers hated poor people), which means he can't finish a sentence without choking on his own tongue. He will be easy to defeat in 2020 if the left can stop trying to be polite and run a campaign of blood and guts against him.

The lesson I learned from covering this election, and from the early days of the presidency from hell, is not that America is any worse than it used to be. Its flaws are just more obvious and underlined. Ours has always been a nation founded on imperialism and massacre, and its people have always been prone to tribalism and hate. Trump is not cause to give up on this country. Trump is not cause to retreat into fantasy. Trump is the loudest rallying cry in the world that it's time for us to do better and get to work.

Building that future starts with an inspired American left that gives a real alternative to Trump yelling at us, a left that knows the material well-being of our citizens is imperiled and nobody feels secure, a left that makes our people an offer for something else, a left that promises a future and shows us how that future would be made manifest. That starts with talking to Americans, engaging them on their level, and selling them on real leftist principles instead of telling them how bad the alternative is. That starts with making young people believe in your candidate. That starts with admitting the train has been derailed but hasn't exploded.

Public political nihilism is everywhere because of this president, and it's pure bullshit. It's all about creating a morose, vaguely teenage, and powerless conception of your place in the world to escape moral culpability. It's a way out. It gives you narrative and closure. It makes your life a movie that you're watching from the nosebleeds.

But there's a way to change that. Whenever you want to say the world is ending, whenever you want to say the ship is sinking so let's crack open some Scotch and sing a funeral song, slap yourself in the face and tell the truth. If you engage with the news at all, the easiest thing to say in 2017 is that the world is ending. What's harder is admitting the scary truth: It's not, and there's work to do in it.

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Trump’s bluff on White House tapes wasn’t just dishonest it was also a failure – Washington Post

Posted: at 6:01 am

President Trump tweeted on June 22 that he doesn't possess and didn't record tapes of his private conversations with former FBI director James B. Comey. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

This post has been updated with Trump's tweets.

President Trump acknowledged Thursday that he doesn't have any tapes of conversations with former FBI director James B. Comey, finally coming clean after playing a nearly six-week-long game.

And in the end, it wasn't just another bluff from Trump; it was another bluff that was called and that continued to chip away at Trump's honesty and credibility, for no discernible benefit.

The presidentlast month wielded those potential tapes as a very thinly veiled threat against Comey. And ever since then, Trump and the White House have decided to withhold the truth from the American people, refusing to answer a simple yes-or-no question about whether they had tapes.

But Newt Gingrich just gave away the game earlier Thursday, for all intents and purposes. In an interview with the Associated Press, the Trump-backing former House speaker basically admitted that Trump was bluffing to try to get inside Comey's head.

I think he was, in his way, instinctively trying to rattle Comey, Gingrich said. He's not a professional politician. He doesn't come back and think about Nixon and Watergate. His instinct is: 'I'll outbluff you.'

Apparently not being a professional politician is a license for dishonesty because that's what this was.

This isjust the latest in a long line of Trump bluffs. There was the time he was going to force the House to vote on its health-care bill, pass or fail,until he urged that it be delayedin the face of defeat. There was the time during the spending debate when the White House signaledthat Trump would allow a shutdown ifthe bill didn'tfund his border wall, only to back downa couple of days later. More examples abound.

But this has been a particularly brazen brand of bluffing from the president of the United States. Trump threatened a former top government official using a falsehood to try to get him to soften his testimony. It's not difficult to attach this to the lengthening list of things suggesting that Trump has tampered in the Russia investigation or even obstructed justice in doing so.

And for a president who has huge trouble with facts, it displays a striking disregard for the truth. No, Trump never said clearly that he had the tapes, but he has left that possibility out there for weeks, refusing to go on the record. Politics tends to be a rough-and-tumble business, but this is pretty unapologetic political nihilism, plain and simple.

It also has shelf life. I argued after one of Trump's previous bluffs that this kind of strategy may pay dividends in the business world and in the near term as president, but that as a politician it can and will catch up to you:

This kind of bluffing and having it called is undoubtedly something Trump is used to in the business and real estate worlds. But in the political world, you are negotiating with the same people over and over again. And the lesson of the first two big congressional debates is that when Trump says a bill must contain XYZ, he doesn't really mean it; it's just posturing. And that doesn't bode well for future Trump demands.

During the last government shutdown in 2013, when Republicans demanded defundingObamacare, they were at least willing to follow through on that demand. The government was closed for more than two weeks before the GOP relented. That served notice to Democrats that Republicans were at the very least willing to go all-in on their strategy and follow through that they weren't bluffing when they made such demands in order for a bill to pass. And that made their threats on other things seem more legitimate.

Trump has shown no such inclination to make it so people take his demands at face value. And given what's happened in the first two legislative debates, the next time he draws a line in the sand, you can bet lawmakers know how easily it can be raked over.

And the final point here is that Comey essentially called Trump's bluff. In blistering testimony that pointed to Trump's potential obstruction of justice two weeks ago, Comey didn't hold back at all. And at one point, he addressed the threat of tapes directly and suggested they would vindicate him if they did exist.

Former FBI director James B. Comey said he has seen President Trump's May 12 tweet that suggested there could be "tapes" of their private conversations, saying "Lordy, I hope there are tapes." (Reuters)

Ive seen the tweet about tapes, Comey said. Lordy, I hope there are tapes.

So Trump appears to have not only done something dishonest that undermines his credibility going forward, but it didn't even work.At least the charade is over.

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In the Almost-Great Baby Driver, Hollywood Goes Asperger’s – National Review

Posted: at 6:01 am

Lots of movies are manipulative, but Edgar Wrights action-comedy Baby Driver defines the era by pampering its teenage audience.

Yet its most impressive moment invokes an obscure but cinematic icon: The hero nicknamed Baby (Ansel Elgort), an orphaned hipster who loves speed-racing and pop music and works for a crime boss as a getaway driver, loses the right lens of his sunglasses during a botched escape.

This odd, striking occurrence recalls Jean-Paul Belmondos sunglasses lens popping out at the crisis point of Breathless (1961), as did Warren Beattys in Bonnie & Clyde (1967) and Jack Nicholsons in Chinatown (1974). No mere coincidence, the visual image connects Baby Driver to its cool-crime-movie lineage (film scholars can trace it back further to Sergei Eisensteins eyeglasses montage in Battleship Potemkin). Such insider references make Baby Driver a curious, coddling delight. Like his Monsters, Inc.quoting protagonist, the only thing Wright loves more than movies is pop music, and the films overflow of these pop references prove he is a more talented and artistic manipulator than Quentin Tarantino.

For those who have desperately waited for morality to return to movies after Tarantinos paradigm shift into nihilism, Baby Driver is almost it. But thats exactly how it pampers. Wrights evocation of cinematic history demonstrates the blinkered moral lookout that once defined the Baby Boomer generation and now Millennials. The fears and scant hopes we feel today are personified in Baby, a hero on the Aspergers scale, who shades himself from the world and plugs earbuds into his head, feeding the energy of pop songs into his alienated existence.

Wright is also a satirist, as seen in his previous films Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which similarly used pop references to define his characters moral choices. The opening car chase here is a spectacular display of sharp editing and speedway hijinks that flip Walter Hills existential action-noir The Driver (1978) into a dangerous daytime parade. After this hyper-kinetic showing-off, Wright mocks Tarantinos love of sadism by providing Baby with a sentimental motive: He falls for the orphaned waitress Debora (Lily James). Their love story is scored to Carla Thomass B-A-B-Y, Martha Reeves & the Vandellas Nowhere to Run, and Brenda Holloways Every Little Bit Hurts, each trenchantly expressing moments of romance, excitement, and fear.

While Baby Drivers crime plot is routine (riffing on The Usual Suspects), Wrights movie and song references should return audiences to the principles that post-Tarantino culture has lost. Or have we been Occupied, Antifad and Fergusoned so harshly that the young generation Wright addresses enjoys only the shock of violence and no longer cares about the cultural heritage based on those non-Tarantino virtues: connection, respect, obligation, civility, and love?

Wright makes several narrative explorations into honor-among-thieves, trust-between-lovers, and family-fidelity themes, but one stands out: Babys scariest criminal colleague is Bats (Jamie Foxx), a black ghetto fiend from the films Atlanta, Ga., setting. Its Foxxs best characterization since Any Given Sunday, and the Black Lives Matter mob should be analyzing it from now on.

Bats updates Foxxs title role in Django Unchained, QTs inauthentic Blaxploitation-movie fantasy. Perhaps because Wright is English and somewhat distanced from those self-gratifying cultural delusions that made QT think he was revealing essential American race tensions, Foxxs badass stereotype here is an undisguised, frighteningly modern miscreant. Bats doesnt seek justice, he just wants money and, secretly, he wants revenge for the social ills that, according to hip-hop ethos, have urged him toward heartlessness and crime. This is Hollywoods first postMichael Brown characterization, and, through this character, Wright pinpoints black ghetto resentments behind the slogan Black Lives Matter. Bats effectively sizes up his criminal rival (Jon Hamm, playing a former Wall Streeter) as you acquired the kind of debt that makes a white man blush.

Babys white-boy innocence is the opposite of the seething menace represented by Foxx, Hamm, and Jon Bernthals Griff, revealing the conspicuous, audience-pampering, and ethnic cop-outs of most Hollywood entertainment. Babys collection of personally recorded mix-tapes and scenes with his black foster father Joseph (CJ Jones) nod to Guardians of the Galaxy and Deadpool, geek blockbusters that also pampered fans who take pleasure in feigning their innocence. But when Wright lets loose with his British-tinged social satire, Baby Driver compares to Jared Hesss more genial crime comedy, Masterminds, and becomes the funniest and most incisive crime movie since Next Day Air. Wright goes beyond the comic-book and action-movie spoofs of QTs ilk.

Baby Driver might have equaled Breathless, Bonnie & Clyde, and Chinatown had Wright not peppered Babys crime spree with so many cute asides (or repeated several testimonies to the kids decency). His music cues and music-based sound design finally become glib and self-congratulatory (unlike the moving way a single pop song connected generations in the Mexican film Geros). Consider that the smart-ass title Baby Driver is the title of a 1970 Simon and Garfunkel ditty about family heritage that recites, My daddy was a prominent frogman / My mammas in the Naval reserve / When I was young I carried a gun / But I never got a chance to serve. And then comes its most telling line: I did not serve.

The reference to that songs Vietnam Draftera abstention (the choice of criminal rebellion over military service) establishes that baby-faced Elgort is a contemporary response to the anomie of Taxi Drivers Travis Bickle. Yet, thats it. None of Baby Drivers compacted pop-culture totems sparks consciousness like the Renaissance art that obsesses the teen hero in Eugne Greens Son of Joseph. Though not as meretricious as the culture remixing by that innocent amoral idiot Tarantino, Wright is essentially shallow, which is akin to what made Paul Simon a gifted yet minor artist.

I wanted Baby Driver to be great, but Wright doesnt risk tragedy as Breathless, Bonnie & Clyde, and Chinatown did. Instead, Baby Driver caters to the blinkered, solipsistic state of our present-day culture; its an Aspergers masterpiece.

*****

Sofia Coppola seems to have lost her pop-music smarts in her remake of The Beguiled. Without ironic pop-music commentary (as in her 2006 Marie Antoinette), this adaptation of Don Siegels 1971 drama (which starred Clint Eastwood and Geraldine Page in a Civil Warera, Tennessee Williamsstyle gothic revenge drama) becomes another of Sofia Coppolas listless spoiled-girl forays. She evokes the same sorority-house haziness of her debut feature, The Virgin Suicides, once again pondering female sexual deviousness and navet: Nicole Kidman runs a boarding school of southern maidens (intense Kirsten Dunst, nubile Elle Fanning, and others) who take in a wounded Yankee (Colin Farrell).

Every character is subject to his or her own arousal and self-interest except Coppola, who here proves she isnt really a director but a blas hipster who extracts the drama out of everything. Pseudo-feminist Coppola even erases the black slave cook, forcefully portrayed in the original by Mae Mercer, whose presence made the microcosmic melodrama turn macro historically accurate and politically relevant. Instead, Coppola once again relies on her own social and gender status, pretending to observe the war between the sexes, with cannons booming in the distance. She ought to have known that her over-obvious point was already made better by the New York Dolls song Who Are the Mystery Girls?

*****

Michael Bay finally makes his Armageddon II, even though its titled Transformers: The Last Knight. Bay stretches the franchise backwardto medieval times, then forward to our imminent dystopian future when Optimus Prime gets brainwashed on the planet Cybertron and then returns to destroy Earth. In the opening Arthurian-travesty scenes, Bay creates actual thunderballs (maybe he should do a Bond next), then he entertains quasi-political allegory in the present-day scenes of Transformers hiding out in Alien No-Go zones of postIndustrial Revolution ghost towns.

Once again, the Transformer series verges on absurdity but thats less important than the unique big-screen spectacle of Bays pop-art and futurist filmmaking. In the 2013 Pain & Gain, Bay had seemed to be moving toward artistry of his own his love of mechanics, digital effects, and an ad-mans view of the world (including leggy, full-lipped, model-type heroines).

But The Last Knight seems plot-driven, not purely and ingeniously cinematic like the previous installments. He even employs a new little robot, in the mode of The Phantom Menaces BB-8, which rolls around the explosive, pyrotechnic chaos while humans and bigger bots enact endless repetitions of Road Runnerstyle slapstick violence, acrobatics, and painlessness in strangely empty cities. By trying to outdo James Cameron, Peter Jackson, and Christopher Nolan, Bay must have forgotten that he used to be the superior artist.

READ MORE: The Book of Henry: Bad Rhetoric from Violence-Justifying Liberals The Mummy: American Guilt and Masochism Wonder Woman: What Does a Wonder Womanchild Want?

Armond White is the author of New Position: The Prince Chronicles.

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BRITANNIA: WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE #3 Review: Massacre in the Arena – ComicsVerse

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BRITANNIA: WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE #3 by Peter Milligan and Juan Jose Ryp Plot Art Characterization

Summary

BRITANNIA: WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE #3 splits its time equally between savage gladiator battles and an engaging mystery. The Ancient Roman detective, Antonius, gets to stretch his deductive legs. As the mysteries begin to unwind, BRITANNIA #3 picks up momentum and ends on a fantastic cliffhanger. However, the issue suffers from a lack of focus on the female character, Achillia. So far, this series has relegated her to the sidelines. BRITANNIA #3, written by Peter Milligan with art by Juan Jose Ryp, is no exception.

This issue begins with the evil Emperor Nero forcing Antonius and Achillia into the gladiator arena. Despite being outnumbered, the two warriors triumph. Achillia utilizes her blind ferocity while Antonius, in contrast, uses his deductive abilities to do away with his opponents. The scene reminded me of the bar brawl in Robert Downey Juniors SHERLOCK HOLMES. Antonius meticulously finds the details necessary to win. We get a real feel for how good a detective Antonius is, seeing him in a realm we have not seen him in before. The scene is not integral to the story, but it does flesh out Antoniuss character toward a new direction.

READ: Take a look at BLACK PANTHERTeaser: Why You Should Believe The Hype!

After the riveting fight scene, the issue continues with the ongoing mystery. The sons of Romes high society members are being killed by gods come to life. Antonius traces the clues back to Achillia. Their interaction, however, is brief as she sends him on an adventure. This is Achillias last appearance in BRITANNIA #3. It feels like the writer is pulling the rug out from under us. Hopefully, Achillia will have more time to shine in later issues.

Antonius and his partner/servant, Bran, travel deep into the catacombs to decipher what is really going on in the temples. The dynamic between the two characters is great. Bran is far more than just a bland, Watson-type figure to bounce ideas off of. He offers a different perspective that Antonius requires. The two complement each other well and the dialogue absolutely reflects this.

Antonius has always been a strict realist and pragmatic thinker. He believes that the supernatural always has an explanation, and superstitions are harmful. In previous issues, this rationalism gave Antonius an edge over his opponents. However, as the mystery becomes increasingly complex, Antonius begins to reject everything he knows to be true. Further, he learns his sons life is on the line and time is running out. Writer Peter Milligan does a great job of pushing this character to his limits.

READ: Here is KILL THE MINOTAUR #1 Review: Greek Mythology Revisited!

BRITANNIAs art has always excelled at portraying violence, but BRITANNIA #3 is a new high. The opening scene is a vicious gladiator battle with piles and piles of bodies cascading onto our hero. The renderings are so complex and detailed that the picture almost seems to be in motion. These arrangements give the impression of a detailed Renaissance painting, where multiple figures spiral into the center. Every page is a complex mosaic of blood and gore.

The most memorable aspect of this issue is Antonius trek into the haunted temples. The depictions of statues of gods coming to life are trippy and violent.The gods rip, tear, and scatter body parts like kids playing with silly putty. The more grounded ultra-violence found earlier in the book is expertly juxtaposed with these exaggerated dismemberments. Not only is this violence disgustingly beautiful, but it raises the stakes for our heroes. I would not want to see Antonius go out like that.

READ: Take a look at RETURN OF THE CAPED CRUSADERS The Deconstruction Of The Dark Knight!

Overall, BRITANNIA #3 is a well-crafted issue that perfectly balances the detective, action, and horror aspects readers love about BRITANNIA. However, the sparse interactions with Achillia are slightly disappointing. Hopefully, the creators are just trying to make us wait for her more involved role in the story.

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‘The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord’ now at Lantern Theater – Montgomery Newspapers

Posted: at 6:00 am

So youve worked closely with Americas most famous atheist for two decades and decide to write a play. What would you choose to dramatize?

Well, how about imagining three other equally famous men a deist, a Christian anarchist and a skeptic who leaned strongly towards Unitarianism who are locked in a room thats not Hell but is definitely on the Other Side and have them try to figure out why theyre there? Oh, and make the title really long so people will remember it!

After a life-threatening illness, Scott Carter (longtime producer and writer for the acerbic Bill Maher) started working on a play about spirituality and chose these men: Declaration of Independence author and former President Thomas Jefferson, Victorian literary superstar Charles Dickens and the passionate, irascible author of War and Peace Leo Tolstoy. In The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord (hereafter referred to as The Gospel) we are treated to a delightful character study of three extraordinary men thinly disguised as a philosophical debate about faith.

The play begins as the three men are thrust into a white walled room with a door that locks behind them, a table, three chairs and a mirror (the audience) as the fourth wall, a room that could easily be in the same neighborhood as the purgatorial bus stop C.S. Lewis created in his novel The Great Divorce. In Lewis book the recently deceased jostle and snarl at each other waiting for a celestial bus to take them to Heaven.

But in this room, where Leo (Dont call me Count) Tolstoy says the free thinkers are trapped like three Jonahs in a whales belly the disputes are mostly intellectual. Naturally, they dont like being locked up and want to find a way out and on. As the three captives exchange their stories it becomes clear they all were drawn to the original teachings of Jesus, to the point where each man developed his own version of the Gospel.

In the table drawer they find blank journals and pens Someone obviously wants them to use. So they get to work creating a new Gospel and quickly discover that they cant agree on much of anything.

Jefferson was the rational deist who famously wrote, it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error. He believed in a Supreme Being but not in the Trinity. Dickens was a publicly devout skeptic who often criticized what he saw as religious extremism in Britain. Tolstoy in his later years became an unorthodox Christian who based his beliefs in Christs message of nonviolence.

Can the three geniuses work together to get out of their impasse? Remember that they are all writers. Carter ensures its great fun to watch them try by having each man reveal contradictions in his spirituality. Jefferson was the defender of rationalism and moral sense who couldnt give up the six hundred slaves that ran his beloved home Monticello, even after death. Dickens and Tolstoys ambivalence about the class system in their countries was reflected in their own shaky marriages.

Gregory Isaacs cool veneer of self-confidence and unquestioned leadership as Jefferson keeps the more emotional outbursts of Dickens (Brian McCann) and Tolstoy (Andrew Criss) in check (at least for a while). McCann, who was the conniving Roman tribune Menenius in Lanterns splendid production of Coriolanus this season pushes hard on Carters view of Dickens as a clever, conceited self-promoter. Hes the spark of the production and fun to watch but Dickens was surely a more complex character than this preening egomaniac who spends much of his time trying to get a reaction from the tightly wound and self-righteous Tolstoy.

Director James Ljames, ubiquitous on the local theater scene as playwright, director and actor has the latters appreciation for giving each character a chance for big and small moments that resonate. Despite the seemingly cramped conditions of this small room packed with so much self-regard, Ljames has choreographed the actors well and they parade around and onto the table and chairs in a small but boisterous ballet of braggadocio and big ideas.

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'The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord' now at Lantern Theater - Montgomery Newspapers

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